As the pair tore away at layer upon layer of plastic, roofing felt, foil and bin bags, they were hit with the stench of rotting garbage. But still Michelle and Rhian carried on, desperate to fulfil their friend’s dying wish that they move a 'plastic medical skeleton' – which she’d wrapped up and buried under bags of gravel at the end of the garden – to the attic in her flat.

According to police, the multiple layers of plastic wrappings had effectively sealed the body from the outside environment, slowing decomposition and causing it to mummify.

“It meant that the remains were incredibly well-preserved,” explains forensic pathologist Dr Richard Jones, who was called to the scene after the discovery on November 24, 2015. In fact, the body had been wrapped in 41 layers of plastic and was so well-kept that he had no trouble identifying the Marks & Spencer pyjamas the body was wearing – as well as a large fracture in the skull that appeared to have been caused by a violent blow to the head.

Michelle James, a pal of Lee's, found the body wrapped in 41 layers of plastic believing she was digging up a medical skeleton in Lee's garden in 2015

But just who was the skeleton in the garden that had been hidden away for so many years?

In 1997, when Lee Sabine first arrived in the quiet Welsh village of Beddau with her bleached-blonde hair, bright orange nails and Antipodean accent, the then 56-year-old made an immediate impact.

Moving into Trem-y-Cwm, a sheltered housing block, she told her neighbours that she used to be a model and nightclub singer in New Zealand, where her grown-up children still lived. There had been a Mr Sabine, but she said she’d recently fled the marriage because of his abusive behaviour, and claimed a women’s charity had rehoused her on the other side of the world in South Wales.

“She told us that her husband John had been horrible to her and that he was a womaniser,” remembers her friend Lynne Williams, 56. “We did ask her if he was still alive, but she said she didn’t know.

“Lee was very secretive about her past, telling me that her family was cruel to her and they didn’t speak any more. But her story often changed from person to person so I could tell she was obviously hiding something. I just didn’t know what.”

Lee's husband John, whom Lee admitted to striking with a stone frog during a phone call

Over the years, Lee became a much-loved character in Beddau, with her fortune-telling and tales of her glamorous life in New Zealand. When the 74 year old was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer in October 2015, Lynne, Michelle and Rhian were devastated.

“We managed to get her into a hospice for her final days, and we all had a glass of prosecco before she died in November,” recalls Lynne.

“Before that, she’d told us she’d stored a plastic skeleton in the garden and thought it would be fun to move it into the attic to scare whoever moved into her flat. It didn’t seem strange, as she had lots of medical books in the house and told us she had been a nurse. At the time, we’d all even joked: ‘I hope it’s not a real one.’”

Lee was very secretive about her past and her story changed from person to person

Lynne Williams, 56

But as Michelle and Rhian discovered, it was real, and a murder enquiry was immediately launched. Within three weeks, DNA analysis – retrieved through John Sabine’s son from a previous marriage – confirmed the skeleton to be Lee’s husband. She was named as the main suspect.

In an attempt to find a motive, detectives began to trace the couple’s history. They had their first child Susan in 1959, before marrying the following year in Pontypridd, when Lee used her real name of Ann. They went on to have three more children – Steven, Martin and Jane – before emigrating to Auckland, New Zealand in 1965. Two years later, their youngest child, Lee-Ann, was born.

Then, in 1969, their story took a dark turn when Lee and John did the unthinkable – abandoning their five children, then aged between two and 10, to start a new life in Australia.

The stone frog that killed John had been kept by one of Lee’s friends who had cleared her flat after she had died

“Throughout my childhood I never gave up believing my parents would return,” says Jane Sabine, who was just three when her parents left.

“I refused to call anyone Mum or Dad out of loyalty to them, believing that someday they would be back. Any plane or taxi I saw near where we were living would send me and my brother running home in the hope it was our parents coming back to get us. But they never did.”

Instead, the Sabines changed their names to John and Lee Martin and began a new life in Sydney, where Lee tried to build a career as a cabaret singer. All the while, their children were being brought up in state-run care homes and foster families in New Zealand.

“Every home I lived in – and there were many – I had the same ritual,” remembers Jane, now 53 and living in Auckland. “Just in case they weren’t alive, I would go to the garden and make two graves with crosses – one for my mum and one for my dad – and I would pray that God would tell them that I loved them. I also prayed that if they were alive, God would tell them that I was waiting for them.”

By 1984, Lee’s bid to become a singer was faltering, and the couple was forced to move back to New Zealand, where they tried to make contact with the children they’d abandoned 15 years previously.

Lee Sabine, centre, with four of the five children she went on to abandon: Susan, Steven, Martin and Jane

Jane had since been discharged from care and was living at the Auckland City Mission, a homeless shelter, when she and her older brother Martin, known as Marty, decided to meet up with their parents.

“When they came back, I wasn’t working and was in an abusive relationship, and hoped their return was going to be a good thing,” says Jane, who now works in sales. “But the lies and the lack of acknowledgement of what they had done soon became apparent. “I asked them why they left, and my mother’s exact words were: ‘Darling, I don’t feel we owe you an explanation.’ Things quickly started falling apart after that, because we got no answers from them. They didn’t want to know anything about our lives. In fact, my mother told me that although my older sister Susan was lovely, I wasn’t what they’d hoped for.

“I don’t know what my parents thought they were coming back to. Did they expect us to simply welcome them back with open arms?”

Despite the New Zealand authorities and the Ministry for Social Welfare investigating the Sabines’ conduct, no charges were ever brought. Even so, the scrutiny proved too much, and the couple quickly fled the country again – this time back to the UK, first to Reading and then on to Beddau, where they signed a joint tenancy agreement for Flat 57 in Trem-y-Cwm. Just days later, John disappeared.

Moving into Trem-y-Cwm, a sheltered housing block in South Wales, Lee told her neighbours that she used to be a model and nightclub singer in New Zealand in the '70s

“The last sighting of Mr Sabine alive was in February 1997,” says DCI Gareth Morgan, the senior investigating officer in the case. “And the last proof of life that we have was in April 1997, when he ordered a prescription.”

But that prescription was never picked up, which led detectives to conclude that John was murdered sometime between February and April 1997.

There was no record of his death, and from interviewing Beddau locals, investigators found that all Lee would say was that the marriage had ended.

Then, in another bizarre twist, once news of John’s murder hit the headlines, DCI Morgan received a call from a woman who had befriended the couple in the ‘90s when they were living in Reading.

“The witness gave us some information that Lee Sabine had admitted striking her husband with a stone frog during a phone call,” reveals DCI Morgan.

The woman told him that when the couple moved to Beddau, she called to see how they were. However, when asked about John, Lee simply replied: “I’ve killed him. I hit him over the head with a stone frog. He was just driving me mad. Every night he would get into bed crying and weeping, saying: ‘You don’t fancy me.’”

Lee's daughter Jane was just three when her parents left and grew up in care hoping they would come back for her and her siblings - and when they did 15 years later, Lee told her: 'Darling, I don’t feel we owe you an explanation'

Of course, like so many neighbours, the friend put it down to Lee’s twisted sense of humour. But it was enough of a lead for the investigation team to return to Beddau, where, incredibly, the stone frog was recovered.

It had been kept by one of Lee’s friends who had cleared her flat after she had died, and the newly discovered evidence was analysed by Dr Jones.

“Scaled photographs of the injured skull and the ornament were compared using photographic software,” he explains. “There was a very good correlation between fractures and projecting parts of the frog. My opinion was that one blow with that ornament could have caused the injuries to the skull.”

With the suspected murder weapon recovered but the murderer already dead, no trial could be held to hold Lee accountable for her actions. Instead, there was an inquest, which heard how a local hairdresser had witnessed what amounted to a confession in the winter of 2000. Lee had said to her: “People are going to talk about me after I have gone. I could be famous.” When the hairdresser asked why, she replied: “Because of the body in the bag.”

Like everyone else, the hairdresser assumed this was “Lee just being Lee” and thought no more about it – until the story began to come to light.

Another part of the grisly puzzle was revealed when two men came forward during the investigation to say that they had been asked to move a package containing “carpet” from Lee’s attic to the garden in early 2014. Police quickly realised it meant that she’d actually been storing her husband’s remains in her loft for the last 17 years, continually wrapping it to mask the smell of decomposition.

The spot where the remains of John Sabine were discovered next to the flat of Michelle James in Beddau, near Pontypridd, south Wales, as the crime only began to be uncovered when she herself died

Jane first heard about her mother’s death and father’s murder in a phone call from her younger sister Lee-Ann, who had been contacted by South Wales Police as part of their investigations.

“The last I had heard from my mother was in 2000 when my brother Marty, 35, had tragically taken his life,” she explains. “Mum had been notified by Interpol and wanted to find out what had happened. I remember at the time asking after my father, and she breezily told me he’d died. When I asked her how, she said he’d suffered numerous medical issues and had been sick for a while. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t told us, so hung up on her.

“In 2002 I started to have counselling in a bid to deal with all we’d been through, and was encouraged to send a letter to my mother saying that I forgave her and hoped we could build some kind of relationship. When she replied, she wrote that she forgave me.

“I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong – maybe I’d cried too much or misbehaved and that’s why they left us? She added that if I was ever able to get over there I could stay with her. Thinking back now, my father was no doubt already dead in the house somewhere.”

Jane admits she’s spent a lifetime wondering why her mother did what she did. “I believe she didn’t mean to kill my father but did so out of a fit of anger, and as she’s done all her life, she came up with a plan to cover her tracks,” she says.

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There is no longer any trace of the murderous story hidden in the gardens of Trem-y-Cwm, as the block was torn down in 2016 to make way for a retirement home.

Even so, Lee’s crimes and cruelty remain a life sentence for the family she left behind.

“It still affects us,” admits Jane, who has lost contact with all her siblings apart from Lee-Ann. “We’ve grown up to be resilient and honest, but there’s still an emptiness and sadness that we just can’t shake. I don’t think it will ever go.”